Edutopia's poll on the amount of homework

Edutopia (https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/edutopia September 14 entry) has asked its readers to weigh in on whether there should be more homework or less homework. I would say less homework, but I would also say they are asking the wrong question. They should be asking, who should be in charge of the home: the teacher or the parent? Once we distinguish the teacher’s role in “assigning” homework from that teacher’s right to “enforce,” homework compliance, we will make a quantum leap forward toward a rational homework policy. Parents will, as a whole, as they do now, support what the teachers want the children to do. Teachers will become more thoughtful about the homework they assign. And children who are at risk of being harmed by homework, which is either plainly excessive or excessive for them as individuals, will have a means for relief, coming from the people they have naturally and always counted on to keep them safe: their parents.

Visit The Homework Trap website

Dr. Kenneth Goldberg, is the author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Teachers, and Students, published by Wyndmoor Press.

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